'Yes' Vote Is Step In The Right Direction

If you want to take a bus from Buckroe to downtown Newport News, it takes about an hour. So, unless you don't have a car, you're going to take a car.

If I want to take a bus from my house in the Riverside neighborhood of Newport News to the Daily Press, I'll need a good pair of walking shoes. That's because I'll have to hike out to Warwick Boulevard to catch a bus. That's about 11/2 miles along neighborhood streets, but I could probably shorten the trek by cutting through the woods of The Mariners' Museum.

Once I arrived at a bus stop on Warwick, my timing would need to be good or I'd have to wait up to a half-hour for a bus. Buses that would take me to the newspaper come by every 30 minutes, and once on the bus the straight shot down Warwick would take about 20 minutes.

Let's say I walked the 11/2 miles in 30 minutes and arrived right as the bus did. In that case, it would take me 50 minutes to go the total of about four miles from my house to my job. Give me another 30 minutes, and I could walk the whole way (arriving feeling righteous but sweaty).

So, I'll take my car.

And so, of course, will everyone else. Well, they won't take my car; they'll take their own. But we'll all go by car.

Whether we're going from midtown to downtown, Williamsburg to Norfolk, Buckroe to the shipyard. The fact is, if you want to get somewhere on a Hampton Roads Transit bus, you need to have time on your hands because the buses don't run that often.

This is not the fault of Hampton Roads Transit. If it had more buses and more drivers -- and, all important, more riders -- it would have more routes and more frequent arrivals and departures. Will such a day ever come?

Yes, if people work for it and pay for it. For that to happen, they have to want it.

But what's this? According to the Mason-Dixon poll conducted for the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot earlier this month, 71 percent of the respondents rated mass transit as "very important" or "somewhat important." That was the top rating for the six projects that would be funded by the Nov. 5 transportation referendum. Second place went to building a third bridge-tunnel across Hampton Roads, which offers an interesting connection because that project includes a mass transit component. The point being, the two projects in the referendum that offer the most to the future of mass transit are also the two projects regarded by the public as most important.

Some people, however, in explaining why they don't support the referendum, have said it doesn't provide enough money for mass transit. But it strikes me that a "no" vote is what we'd expect from someone who dislikes mass transit and who wants to undermine efforts to build a better system.

The referendum will pump $200 million into mass transit: $10 million a year for 20 years. How that money would be used is up in the air, but if the referendum passes, it would be nuts not to use at least some of it to help build some type of light- rail system. And it would be nuts if that rail system didn't tie into the mass transit component of the third crossing.

Hampton Roads, if it wants to fulfill its potential, needs to have a way for people to come down the Peninsula -- from Williamsburg, from Washington, from points north -- on a train, go under the water and pop up on the other side in Norfolk. If we don't use the third crossing to offer that rail component, people will be walking on Mars before folks on the Peninsula are able to get to south Hampton Roads without worrying about spending an hour stuck in traffic. Rail under the water will be a giant step forward for this region, both for what it means for how local people get around in Hampton Roads and for how people move in and out of the region.

And this brings me back to trying to catch a bus in my own neighborhood. You can't have a light-rail system if you don't have a good bus system. The two have to work together, one feeding into the other. If there's a light-rail system on the Peninsula hooked in -- we should all hope -- to light rail in south Hampton Roads by way of the third crossing and into high speed rail running to Richmond and beyond, we'll have a better bus system, too. The integrated system will be easier to use and, therefore, used more often. We'll have fewer cars on the road than we otherwise would. We'll have cleaner air. Perhaps we'll even have more sensible development because of better access to better public transit.

All of this is many years off, even if the referendum passes. But I think a "yes" vote is a lot better step toward that future than voting "no."

Todd is editor of the editorial page. He can be reached at 247-6448 or by e-mail at jtodd@dailypress.com